HP's venerable iPAQ handheld line has seen its ups and downs over the years. But today, the company's tight enterprise focus distinguishes it from its competitors. Even Research In Motion, the perennial business-handset manufacturer, has pushed into the consumer smartphone space. But HP is sticking to its corporate guns. The unlocked iPAQ 910 is HP's latest business smartphone, and the successor to the company's hw6900 series handsets. The new version comes loaded with Wi-Fi, GPS, and HSDPA data radios, along with a 3-megapixel camera, and good video-playback performance. But first and foremost, HP is positioning the iPAQ 910 as a corporate e-mail device that can access workplace data anywhere in the world.

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Despite the iPAQ 910's bulging feature set, it's not ungainlyin fact, it looks much like a BlackBerry 8800 or Motorola Q9c. The handset measures 4.5 by 2.5 by 0.6 inches (HWD), and is fairly hefty: 5.4 ounces. Still, those numbers pin it as slightly smaller and lighter than the Palm Treo 755pan apt comparison, given the iPAQ 910's 2.5-inch, 320-by-240-pixel touch screen and stylus input. HP packs into the box an AC adapter, a USB synchronization cable, a metal stylus, and wired stereo earbuds.

Fashioned in a glossy black, the iPAQ 910 has a gunmetal-gray chrome surround on the front bezel. With its rubberized back panel, the handset is comfortable to hold and talk into. Control-wise, the iPAQ 910 is the anti-iPhone: neither sleek nor minimal, and covered in buttons, dials, and ports. On the front panel, there's a five-way navigation key in the center, with four buttons to either side, which perform various functions. The left-hand side of the unit houses a hardware volume control, a voice-control button, a mini USB port, and a microSD slot. The right-hand side, meanwhile, contains a scroll wheelmore on this belowalong with OK and Camera buttons. On the back of the handset, you'll find the camera sensor and flash, a small self-portrait mirror, and the phone's mono speaker. My preproduction review unit had a troublesome rubber port cover on the left side. Whenever I pressed down one side, the other side popped up. HP claims that final retail models wouldn't have this problem.

The QWERTY keyboard deserves special mention. Given the constraints of smartphone design, no cell-phone keyboard is going to be roomy or comfortable to use for long periods. But the iPAQ 910 excels here, with properly spaced keys, just the right amount of resistance, and a muted click response. There are even dedicated comma, period, and question-mark keys along with the standard issue Backspace and Enter buttons. I found I could type paragraphs at a time without getting frustrated or feeling fatigued.

So about that thumb wheel: It's like the one found on older 8700 series BlackBerrys. But this one is positioned higher up on the right-hand side of the handset. The touch screen is pickyall Windows Mobile touch-screen devices are. But the net effect of the abundance of controls is easy operation, even with one hand. It's probably the most successful implementation of Windows Mobile I've seen in this regard, and speaks volumes to the idea that Apple doesn't have a monopoly on control schemes. If you're familiar with Windows, you'll fly on the iPAQ 910.

Voice calls sounded crisp and clear in both directions, although the sound in the earpiece was a little colder and tinny-sounding than I preferred. Reception was strong enough to pull in weak 3G HSDPA signals in a rural area northwest of Boston, consistent with the reception of other HSDPA phones I've tried in the same location. When paired with an original Aliph Jawbone, the iPAQ 910 sounded spectacular in both directions. But a Cardo S-800 Bluetooth headset exhibited a high level of hiss and even a slight buzz in the background on all calls. (This headset sounds fine when paired to other models). Disappointingly, the iPAQ 910's mono speaker was far too weak for even indoor voice calls, much less outdoor calls or listening to music.

The iPAQ 910 is a tri-band UMTS/HSDPA device with support for 3.6/7.2-megabit-per-second HSDPA data networks. It also works as a broadband modem for a laptop. The built-in Wi-Fi radio connects to 802.11b/g networks with up to WPA2-level security. It also supports Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR. At the iPAQ 910's heart is a 416-MHz Marvell PXA270 processor, 256MB of flash ROM, and 128MB SDRAM, with 76MB free for running programs such as Oracle or Salesforce applications. Those are relatively powerful specsalthough HP's PDA-only iPAQ 210 sports Marvell's next-generation PXA310 CPU, which performs better at the same clock speed and also has built-in graphics acceleration. Still, the iPAQ 910 felt reasonably fast in operation, just a tad sluggish compared with recent BlackBerry and Palm OS devices.

Since the iPAQ 910 is a Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional smartphone, it comes with Microsoft Office Mobile, which lets you view, edit, and create Word and Excel documents out of the box. It can also view (but not edit or create) PowerPoint documents. The handset can synchronize e-mail, contacts, and calendar data with Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange Server. Windows Mobile 6.1 also includes numerous security and encryption enhancements, along with somewhat improved Internet browsing using Internet Explorer. The included MSN Messenger is a plus, but it's not an IM account aggregator, which you can get with many other handsets.

HP throws in a copy of Cyberon's Voice Commander & Recorder, which let me dial contacts without having to train it first. It also lets you respond to e-mail messages by voice. The GPS chipset works with the built-in Google Maps for Mobile; there's also a hidden jack at the top of the handset to add an aftermarket antenna that HP claims will boost its GPS reception fivefold. Finally, HP includes Enterprise Mobility Suite, which is invisible to the user but gives IT departments remote wipe, software provisioning, camera disable/enable, and other management tools.

As a media device, the iPAQ 910 achieved only mixed results. Its processor is fast enough for smooth full-screen playback of properly encoded video files. The microSD slot is easily accessible, and although HP claims it works with cards up to 4GB, I had no problems reading and writing to an 8GB SanDisk microSDHC card. Music tracks sounded very poor over the included set of wired earbuds, and upgrading would be a pain owing to the mini-USB connector. Music fared better, with much more bass, over a paired set of Etymotic Ety8 Bluetooth stereo earphones, but these still lacked the richness of a wired set.

The iPAQ 910's 3MP camera includes autofocus, but you'd never know it: The indoor shots were soft, with dull color and blown out highlights. (It fares much better outside.) The weak LED flash is an all-on-or-all-off affairthere's no auto mode; it had virtually no effect on photos, though, so you might as well leave it off, or just use it as a flashlight. The unit records middling QVGA video files, and there's also a direct Snapfish upload feature. Battery life was average for the class at 9 hours 13 minutes of continuous talk time.

The $499.99 (direct) price may sound expensive to those accustomed to subsidized handsets. But for an unlocked smartphone, HP's pricing is pretty aggressive. For comparison, Nokia's E61i, a previous Editors' Choice winner in this category, costs $450 and is far less capable, as it lacks 3G, GPS, and document editing. (The brand-new E71 looks spectacular, but an early review unit turned out to be too buggy; we're still waiting for a final review version.)

The HP iPAQ 910, with its business-focused Windows Mobile design, has a completely different mission from the Nokia N82, our current Editors' Choice for unlocked smartphones. Since we can award our Editors' Choice to only one product in the unlocked smartphone category, we're now giving it to the iPAQ 910, which is hard to beat when it comes to business-class devices. But that in no way diminishes the N82, still the top pick for anyone who wants a stellar multimedia phone with one of the best integrated cameras you can get. Despite very different target markets, you can't go wrong with either one of these top-quality smartphones.

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About the Author

Jamie Lendino is the Editor-in-Chief of ExtremeTech.com, and has written for PCMag.com and the print magazine since 2005. Recently, Jamie ran the consumer electronics and mobile teams at PCMag, and before that, he was the Editor-in-Chief of Smart Device Central, PCMag's dedicated smartphone site, for its entire three-year run from 2006 to 2009. Pri... See Full Bio

HP iPAQ 910

HP iPAQ 910

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